I just had a thought... you know how scientists try to explain the expansion of the Universe on dark energy? What if space was like rubber? You can imagine two forces pulling at opsite ends and stretching it appart? Well the gravitational pull of galactic clusters would do the same thing to our Universe... One galactic cluster creates a dimple and another one does the same.. the space in between gets stretched and hence the expansion?

Quote:Original post by BCullis If you're learning either from the ground up, I'd suggest C# w/ XNA for speed of deployment. Automatic memory management alone will help solve a lot of elusive leaks. If you're concerned about the potential inadequacies of managed code, the C++ vs C# topic has been covered extensively, and the short answer always seems to be: you won't be able to write code that can show a significant difference anytime soon, if at all. DOH! Beat me by 50 seconds.

Quote:Original post by MyH34DHurtz I've spoken to a few friends who are software engineers, and they have told me that C++, although would be a good place to start, c# is alot better (However slower) for game design. Just wondering where was the best place to start? Well, it's not really that much slower. I doubt your first game will need the extra "little" speed that C++ will give you. I just ported my directx10 C++ based code to XNA and I am very impressed.

yeah, it took me a few years to catch up with the math. I had to take a linear algebra course.. that's what "clicked-it" for me. I wrote my own software based 3D engine as a project for that course. Hang in there, it will all come back. I think knowing linear algebra is already a good start.

Don't underestimate the power of good graphics. I agree, everything has to tie-in nicely to be good...graphics, story and gameplay... but first impressions mean alot... if a game "looks" good i will give it a shot by downlaoding a demo... even now with HD and BLU-RAY... I will give movies and shows a shot just because they're HD or on BLU-RAY... but "looks" good is an individual preference. We are attracted to attractive people... imagine a sci-fi show without the token hot-chick or hunky-dude or no visual appeal in special effects...

i'm in the middle of porting my dx10 engine to xna, including physics... I'm about 80% done and it only took me 1 week! And it was so satisfying seeing my game on the 360... really cool... it just took me a whole day to figure out the ref keyord :$ ... but I ported the physics code in no time and it's much nicer in C#... frame rates with parallex mapping and per-pixel lighting is really good... I also feel like it's "Too Good To Be True."

Well, it's just not coding, but the domain of the project as well... the domain would be a 3D Game. In 3D Game Domain you're looking at physics/collision, and 3D graphics.... depending on how much you want to learn, this could take a while. You'll need at least basic linear algebra and basic calculus even if you're planning on using third party engines to get around the documentation. Then there's content, you can make your own or go buy some.... I have been doing everything on my own, physics and 3D graphics, and i'm not done.... i've been at it for about 4 years... but i fell in the trap of re-writting, i'm on my 3rd re-write... But don't worry, I've been using the old proverb: "You can eat an elephant, one bite at a time ."

I'm just playing around with XNA 3.0, and wow, sometimes I wonder why I'm writting my engine in C++ DirectX10. XNA makes things so much easier. Does anyone know if XNA 3.0 will support HLSL 4.0? Or does it only support up to version 2? I like the branching in HLSL 4 and I like the geometry shader, but I don't know if that's a dx10 thing only though?

Hi Have you tried the GPU Gems 3 way of doing it? It bassically extracts the world position out of the depth buffer and builds a velocity from the previouse world position... I implemented with good success... the good thing about this technique is that it can also be used as depth-of-field... link [EDIT] I should mention this technique works well for First person views, third person views is tricky and a mask has to be applied so the main character does not get blurred too much....